Thankful for: Whole Foods

 

Yes, Whole Foods is an elitist foodie kind of place. There’s something truly irritating about its smug way of selling groceries. Though its CEO and founder is a free-market devotee (that’s no small thing) who has spoken out against Obamacare, the place still reeks of progressive self-satisfaction.

I love it, of course. But that can’t be news, can it?

But Whole Foods has probably put money in my pocket. How? When they opened a giant store a few years ago, on a benighted corner in Venice, Calif. close to my house, they displaced an out-of-business Big Lots, reinvigorated a famously gang-ridden and low-income neighborhood (it’s just a few doors down from the Venice Family Clinic) and actively helped transform the area from a couple of storefronts into a lively and small business friendly area.

In other words: Whole Foods helps property values and encourages small enterprise just by moving in.

Which is the way the free market is supposed to work.

And now they’re doing it in a tough part of Chicago. From WaPo:

The center of Englewood has been vacant for so long that many people in the neighborhood can’t quite recall when it became that way. Thirty years ago? Forty? It was after blockbusting began on the South Side, after white flight was well underway, after the big Sears Roebuck, with the Hillman’s Pure Foods in the basement, closed in the 1970s.

Sometime around then, the small businesses at 63rd and Halsted closed, too, and the buildings that housed them were razed. And so one of the busiest shopping corridors in Chicago was reduced to a desolate stretch of city: 13 acres of crabgrass and concrete with aging streetlights.

Forget for a moment that you and I both know how that part of town got that way. Progressive urban policies, of course. But put that aside for now. Instead, here comes free enterprise:

[Whole Foods] which has built its fortunes and reputation anchoring condo developments in wealthy enclaves, has never gone into a neighborhood like this.

I beg to differ. Venice was no yuppie destination when they moved in. But that’s a quibble.

But last year, to the disbelief of many, the company announced plans to open a store in 2016 here, in one of Chicago’s most economically depressed neighborhoods.

When the city held a ceremonial groundbreaking a few months ago, Walter Robb, Whole Foods’ co-chief executive, showed up in Englewood and vowed that it would be “one of the most meaningful things we’ve done as a company.”

This store, though, is no act of philanthropy. Nor is it a bet, by Whole Foods, on neighborhood change. The arrival of its gleaming stores in a neighborhood often signals the influx of wealthier residents. But that is not likely to happen in Englewood, at least not any time soon. Whole Foods is planning to sell olive oil and snap peas to the people who live here now. It is also planning, in the process, to make money.

It’s worked before:

In summer 2013, Whole Foods opened a store in Detroit that also raised eyebrows. The Midtown location, though, had more customers at the ready: Pricey new condos are rising around it. Wayne State University and its medical center are nearby. The Detroit Symphony Orchestra is a block away.

So here we have a company that invests its shareholders’ money in places that A) are often the victims of big-government, big-city programs that have failed; and B) where it expects to turn a profit.

That’s worth being thankful for.

Published in General
Like this post? Want to comment? Join Ricochet’s community of conservatives and be part of the conversation. Join Ricochet for Free.

There are 30 comments.

Become a member to join the conversation. Or sign in if you're already a member.
  1. user_2967 Inactive
    user_2967
    @MatthewGilley

    Free market, profit driven, and not so gauche as Wal-Mart? Be thankful as long as it lasts. The UFCW will tolerate unorganized quinoa for only so long.

    • #1
  2. Western Chauvinist Member
    Western Chauvinist
    @WesternChauvinist

    Is WF building the price of plywood into their overhead costs? What were perfectly gleaming small businesses in Ferguson are piles of ash and soot today. I mean, I admire the intentions, but sometimes good intentions bump up against terrible realities.

    I hope it works out for everyone.

    • #2
  3. RushBabe49 Thatcher
    RushBabe49
    @RushBabe49

    Yeah, remember the ones who hounded Trader Joe’s out of a distressed Portland, Oregon neighborhood? I wonder if Whole Foods will meet up with the same kind of “welcome”.

    • #3
  4. Nick Stuart Inactive
    Nick Stuart
    @NickStuart

    Good for them.

    There is an often complaint about “food deserts” meaning, I suppose, areas like Chicago’s South Side. But they are kept that way because the unions and community activists fight ferociously to keep big box outlets like Wal-Mart from opening on Chicago’s South Side.

    • #4
  5. user_358258 Inactive
    user_358258
    @RandyWebster

    I assume Whole Foods is self-insured.

    • #5
  6. SteveSc Member
    SteveSc
    @SteveSc

    I went for the first time last weekend when my daughter (who works there) told me they serve actual Buffalo Burgers, had to have one.

    If I ever go again (except for the excellent burger), it will be too soon.  The smarmy, self centered, feel good do-gooderism pasted everywhere was so off putting.  When I shop, I want to buy stuff, not be preached to…

    Like most of the people that work there, my daughter can’t afford to shop there.

    • #6
  7. MarciN Member
    MarciN
    @MarciN

    I’m a fan of John Mackey, founder of Whole Foods and the Conscious Capitalism movement.

    • #7
  8. user_2967 Inactive
    user_2967
    @MatthewGilley

    “I love Food & Stuff. It’s where I buy all my food. And most of my stuff.” — Ron Swanson (of course)

    • #8
  9. AUMom Member
    AUMom
    @AUMom

    I love Whole Food. I wish I could shop there more often. They have spectacular fruits & vegetables, stellar meats & fish, and, by far, some of the best cheese around.

    Alas, I only go when I have a surfeit of funds.

    • #9
  10. MLH Inactive
    MLH
    @MLH

    SteveSc,

    They sell ground bison at Fry’s and Sprouts. There is bison ranch on Route 66 north of Kingman. Lot’s of places to get the goods to make your own buffalo burger!

    • #10
  11. Fricosis Guy Listener
    Fricosis Guy
    @FricosisGuy

    My wife has addicted me to Whole Foods’ brined rotisserie chicken.

    Which makes me a BRINO.

    • #11
  12. PHCheese Inactive
    PHCheese
    @PHCheese

    Here in Charleston we refer to them as ” Whole Paycheck” .

    • #12
  13. Casey Inactive
    Casey
    @Casey

    Whole Foods and Target helped turn around Pittsburgh’s East Liberty neighborhood. A beautiful,bustling neighborhood that was “fixed” through extensive urban planning and left for dead. The neighborhood is now home to Google and lots of other good stuff. The place to be.

    Thank you Whole Foods.

    • #13
  14. FightinInPhilly Coolidge
    FightinInPhilly
    @FightinInPhilly

    I’m willing to check my politics at the door for a place that consistently has superior customer service. Don’t know where something is, the associate will walk you to the precise spot in the aisle. Don’t know how to prepare something, the butcher has several suggestions. Not sure what the heck this thing on the recipe is? They will give you a 30 second lesson. It’s admittedly too expensive for 100% of our shopping, but it’s worth every penny when I go.

    • #14
  15. Hartmann von Aue Member
    Hartmann von Aue
    @HartmannvonAue

    I would have to agree with you. Especially nice is having John Mackey’s office right smack in the middle of Austin’s Lefty Proglydte territory.  Oddly, though, we go to the store in Chapel Hill more often than the one in Austin- it’s a ten minute walk from my mother-in-law’s house, fifteen to twenty from my sister-in-law’s.

    • #15
  16. Sandy Member
    Sandy
    @Sandy

    Small-d democrats will always have a problem with businesses like Whole Foods that attempt to provide something they advertise as superior  and at a superior price, but WF comes under special criticism because unlike, say, Tiffany’s,  it sells something everyone needs. I have my criticisms–for a food purist like me, they don’t do enough of what they pretend to do–but no more than I do of other businesses.

    I do understand SteveSc at #6 being annoyed by the do-gooderism, but I’m more annoyed with the customers than with WF itself, and that isn’t WF’s fault, it’s mine for living amongst the blue part of the spectrum.  As for employees not being able to shop where they work, what to say?  It happens.  I could not afford to use my own massage therapy services as much as many of my clients do either.  I’m just grateful that they can.

    Good for Mackey.  I hope he makes a difference at 63rd and Halsted.

    • #16
  17. iWc Coolidge
    iWc
    @iWe

    Sanctimonious earth worship.

    One thing this Jew can agree with, though: it matters what one eats.

    • #17
  18. Kay of MT Inactive
    Kay of MT
    @KayofMT

    Whole Foods is tough on people who live in the neighborhood on limited incomes. If you have special needs/diet the cost of a package of tapioca flour is about a 3rd or more higher than at Super 1 or Wal-Mart. I’m convinced the higher prices are to pay for the perfume they spray in the air.

    • #18
  19. billy Inactive
    billy
    @billy

    SteveSc:I went for the first time last weekend when my daughter (who works there) told me they serve actual Buffalo Burgers, had to have one.

    If I ever go again (except for the excellent burger), it will be too soon. The smarmy, self centered, feel good do-gooderism pasted everywhere was so off putting. When I shop, I want to buy stuff, not be preached to…

    Like most of the people that work there, my daughter can’t afford to shop there.

    Whenever I go to Whole Foods, I feel an overwhelming urge to burn Styrofoam in the parking lot  just to be blatantly anti-chic.

    • #19
  20. user_2505 Contributor
    user_2505
    @GaryMcVey

    I used to feel a certain knee-jerk reverse snobbery about the place, but I was wrong; for what it does, it’s terrific. Some of the sanctimoniousness was in the eye of the beholder. Neighborhood moms looking for olive oil on sale are not all sneering, gullible tools of the Leviathan state.

    I’m also within walking distance of the one in Venice, and Rob’s right; it’s done more block cleanup and urban redevelopment than the city government ever did, and at no direct cost to me. One of my son’s friends has always lived a few blocks away from that corner, and he recently joked how “disappointing it is that white folks just aren’t scared of me anymore”.

    Don’t worry too much about Rob’s food budget. He recently did an equally devoted tribute to Costco.

    Psst! The hidden reason for Whole Foods success on that corner; there’s a 99 Cent store conveniently located next door, and plenty a 99 Cent canvas bag ends up in the trunk of a Beemer or a Benz.

    • #20
  21. Western Chauvinist Member
    Western Chauvinist
    @WesternChauvinist

    Meh, I’ve always found hipsters (née hippies) to be friendly enough. It’s just the piercings, dreads, tatts, and patchouli don’t do much for my appetite. And the price tag pretty much puts a nail in that coffin for this Walmart shopper.

    • #21
  22. MarciN Member
    MarciN
    @MarciN

    The first time I saw a Whole Foods was ten years ago in Symphony Hall square in Boston. It was truly beautiful–a still-life painting everywhere I looked. So I was excited when I found out that they were opening a store in Hyannis on Cape Cod.

    It opened up a couple of months ago, and I was disappointed. It was cramped and not beautiful.

    I’ll go back to Trader Joe’s, which is a modern miracle, I think, in terms of prices and value. (My grown kids love Trader Joe’s too–we always come out of there saying, “The prices are so low that we must be in an alternative universe when we go in there!)

    The difference in my mind between TJ and WF is that Trader Joe’s sells only products it has investigated enough to put its own name on. Whole Foods sells to the same market as Trader Joe’s–people concerned about the major food purveyors and their food-handling practices–but WF sells other companies’ products, so I’m on my own in that store. I know less about the companies making the Whole Foods products than I know about Kellogg’s and Dole.

    I love the prices at Trader Joe’s. And the marketing. The company appeals to my sense of fun. And I’ve been pleased with the items I’ve bought there.

    • #22
  23. user_2505 Contributor
    user_2505
    @GaryMcVey

    Trader Joe’s is pretty good; for decades before WF came to town it was a cut-rate center for lovers of mildly exotic foods. It’s got a much smaller selection than Whole Foods; they aren’t exactly direct competitors. “Cheap and cheerful” is the Trader Joe’s theme, though I must say it mostly lives up to the “cheerful” part.

    I think Rob will back me up on this: if on your next visit to Los Angeles, you want to see the stars, you’re more likely to run into them at WF, TJ’s or the Brentwood Ranch Market than at bars or nightclubs. After all, you can drink at home, but for cruelty-free pasta, you have to go out in public.

    • #23
  24. MarciN Member
    MarciN
    @MarciN

    Gary McVey:Trader Joe’s is pretty good; for decades before WF came to town it was a cut-rate center for lovers of mildly exotic foods. It’s got a much smaller selection than Whole Foods; they aren’t exactly direct competitors. “Cheap and cheerful” is the Trader Joe’s theme, though I must say it mostly lives up to the “cheerful” part.

    I think Rob will back me up on this: if on your next visit to Los Angeles, you want to see the stars, you’re more likely to run into them at WF, TJ’s or the Brentwood Ranch Market than at bars or nightclubs. After all, you can drink at home, but for cruelty-free pasta, you have to go out in public.

    All true.  :)

    And very funny. :)

    • #24
  25. Casey Inactive
    Casey
    @Casey

    Gary McVey: if on your next visit to Los Angeles, you want to see the stars, you’re more likely to run into them at WF, TJ’s or the Brentwood Ranch Market than at bars or nightclubs.

    Thanks for the tip, Gary.  On my next trip, let’s plan to get together at some bars and nightclubs.

    • #25
  26. user_2505 Contributor
    user_2505
    @GaryMcVey

    You got it, Casey. I always prefer a rum n’ coke without a sidecar of “Hey, isn’t that Priya Koothrapali having a catfight with Stella from CSI:NY?”

    • #26
  27. Gödel's Ghost Inactive
    Gödel's Ghost
    @GreatGhostofGodel

    Gary McVey:You got it, Casey. I always prefer a rum n’ coke without a sidecar of “Hey, isn’t that Priya Koothrapali having a catfight with Stella from CSI:NY?”

    Almost 22 years ago now, I moved to Los Angeles. Astonishingly shortly thereafter, I found myself dating a woman who is among the few, the proud: a native of Los Angeles. On one of our dates we were at a bookstore in Century City, and, having different reading tastes, we split up. As I was browsing, I happened to see a rather stunning young woman who quite strongly resembled Jerry Seinfeld’s girlfriend at the time, Shoshanna Lonstein. When we met back up at the cash register line, I said, “I saw a woman who looked exactly like Shoshanna Lonstein.” My now-wife—herself an actress and daughter of a comedian—deadpanned, “That’s funny. I just saw a man who looked exactly like Jerry Seinfeld.”

    After nearly trampling Jeanne Tripplehorn underfoot, letting Ellen Barkin cut in line at an ATM, seeing David Duchovny and Tea Leoni try to do some drugstore shopping in peace in the wee hours of one morning, and having a wonderfully charming chat with John C. McGinley in a Santa Monica restaurant (“Thank you so much for your performance in ‘Fat Man and Little Boy!'” “You know, I think you and I were the only ones who saw that film!”), I’ve gotten used to seeing the occasional famous face. But that first time is a cherished memory.

    • #27
  28. MLH Inactive
    MLH
    @MLH

    daughter of a comedian—deadpanned,

    Gary, your MIL is funny!

    • #28
  29. Casey Inactive
    Casey
    @Casey

    Just looked up Priya. Apparently a TV character portrayed by Aarti Mann… From?

    Pittsburgh.

    • #29
  30. user_139157 Inactive
    user_139157
    @PaulJCroeber

    Can’t say as I’ve frequented WF but I confess to a certain level of free marketer satisfaction as I’ve seen what Mr. Mackey and his team have done.  Tease as we do that hipsters and foodies love the place, but it would never have come to be without them and the freedom to accommodate their preferences.

    • #30
Become a member to join the conversation. Or sign in if you're already a member.